NAME

CONTEXT — manage pinned context that survives /clear

SYNOPSIS

/context show /context add TEXT… /context clear

DESCRIPTION

Pinned context is a block of text that is always present as the first user message after the system prompt. It survives /clear so the model keeps seeing it no matter how many times you reset the conversation.

Use pinned context for information the model should never lose sight of:

• A project description or goal that frames every question.
• Key constraints (“do not modify files outside agents/”).
• A running summary you composed to replace a long conversation.
• Environment facts that are not in HARVEY.md.

Pinned context is stored in memory only; it is not persisted to agents/harvey.yaml or session files. It resets when Harvey exits.

SUBCOMMANDS

/context show Print the current pinned context and its byte count. If no context is set, prints “(pinned context is empty)”.

/context add TEXT… Append TEXT to the pinned context. Multiple words are joined with a space. Calling add again appends a newline then the new text so you can build up multi-line context incrementally.

  /context add This project targets Raspberry Pi OS (armv7l).
  /context add Never use cgo; the binary must be statically linked.

/context clear Remove the pinned context and delete the pinned-context message from the conversation history. The model will not see it in subsequent turns.

RELATION TO /CLEAR

/clear resets the conversation history but keeps pinned context. After /clear, the system prompt is re-injected, then the pinned context is re-injected as the first user message, so the model’s next turn starts with both.

SEE ALSO

/clear — reset conversation history (pinned context survives) /summarize — condense history; combine with /context add to preserve a summary across /clear